2007 Annual Report
CEO’s Insight
SEG International Bhd (SEGi) is focusing on educational programmes in niche areas in the job market to boost its business in the coming years, Chief Executive Officer Dato’ Clement Hii said.
“We are not just running common programmes such as business, accountancy, marketing and the lot now.”
“We have gone into many niche areas such as nursing, allied health sciences, pharmacy, dentistry, biotechnology, tourism, hotel management and construction management,” Hii told StarBiz.
For example, the Group currently has more than 1,500 nursing students with the number set to grow this year.
SEGi also has added value to many of its academic courses. For instance, it has a leadership training centre in Malacca where students have the opportunity to go for short stints to learn soft skills and leadership skills.
In addition, SEGi has a Career Exploratory Programme, where students undergo industrial training at leading companies.
Hii said SEGi had been involved in training for companies and revenue stream from this source was slowly increasing.
“We have also undertaken training projects for ministries and Government agencies, and there is room for growth in this area as well,” he said.
Hii said SEGi had also beefed up its human capital substantially, having recruited many doctorate holders.
“We are even talking to our partner universities about sending their faculty members to Malaysia on secondment,” he added.
SEGi has 16,000 students in six campuses and five training centres.
“We don’t have immediate plans to expand, in terms of infrastructure, but we are certainly confident of reaching our full capacity of 26,000 students within the next three or four years,” Hii said.
He added that 2,200 students had enrolled within six months of the opening its flagship campus in Kota Damansara.
“This is highly encouraging and we expect to achieve 4,500 students by year’s end at this campus alone.”
“Our foreign student population has also increased, in line with our aggressive marketing campaign in China, Indonesia, the African continent and the Middle East,” he said.
On the Group’s financial, Hii said SEGi was enjoying the fruit of its rationalisation and re-branding exercises that began in early 2006.
At the time, the Group disposed off smaller and loss-making centres and re-branded all its colleges under a single name. It has also improved on a host of areas such as facilities, programme quality and range, as well as student services.
The Group’s efforts seem to be pretty successful as earnings have been steadily improving since then.
“We got ourselves out of feeder roads and small pathways onto a highway, so to speak. Now, the direction ahead is clearer and smoother.”
“I strongly believe that SEGi will see healthy returns in the years to come, and such profits can be sustained over the years,” Hii said.
Dato’ Clement Hii
Group Chief Executive Officer
(Source: The Star, Malaysia, starbiz, 2 Feb 2008)